Mitt Romney

President Barack Obama was re-elected to a second term last night in race that see-sawed back and forth late into the night. This time four years ago, it was still unclear which way North Carolina had gone in the presidential race. Not so today. Republican Mitt Romney won the state by 96,000 votes – dealing a blow to local Democrats.

First Lady Michelle Obama rallied a few thousand supporters in a hangar at the Charlotte airport this afternoon. It was the last major Obama campaign event in North Carolina of the 2012 election. WFAE's Julie Rose was there and joined WFAE's Mark Rumsey by phone from the rally.

The slightest change in support can tip the North Carolina vote in favor of President Obama or Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

An Elon University poll released this week shows they are in a statistical dead heat heading into the final week of campaigning. They are appealing to an electorate that’s undergone significant change. U.S. Census figures show minorities accounted for 35 percent of North Carolina’s population growth in the last decade.

So we looked at the influence of the minority vote and the challenges Romney has in capturing it.

With the word last week that the Romney campaign was feeling “confident enough about North Carolina … to shift staff out of the state” on the same day as in-person early voting started, it might be wise for them to consider some past history and the first couple of days worth of early voting.

It was a two-for debate night, with the candidates for chief executive of North Carolina and the nation having their first televised debates. Both debates were much more than the stereotyped “talking points” forums. They were both substantive, in general, and certainly set a tone for the final month of the general campaign.

"There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right? There are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement, and that government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. I mean, the president starts off with 48, 49 -- he starts off with a huge number.

When the United States was in the midst of World War I, U.S. Sen. Hiram W. Johnson, an isolationist from California, is credited with coining the phrase “the first casualty when war comes is truth.” So it seems the same could be said for this year’s political campaigns.

This year’s campaign seems to be taking the “cut and paste” approach by both sides, and highlighting a minute piece of what a candidate says and creating a firestorm out of a dust-up.